We awoke and started to get used to the new house and routine – the house is very simple and it seems as the family has a massive routine that they follow all day – wether its cooking, looking after goats, collecting firewood or water – they always looked as though they were doing something. Today was school day for us and the kids – so we packed our bags and headed down the 10 minute walk to school.
We got there just in time for the morning assembly and were forced to stand in front of the kids and give an impromptu speech before the kids headed to class…talk about nervous as you speak to a large group of kids (half of those couldnt understand a word we said though!!). Before we start with the day at school – we have to mention that the schooling system is VERY different from that at home (or anywhere that we have been). We did find this out over the course of the day as we decided to have a observation day (kind of like what Super Nanny does) before we started getting our hands dirty!
We spent the day following the teachers around the school with our school ‘tour’ and got to meet the kids in each class. We are the only volunteers in the school at the moment – which makes the kids eyes always focus on us!
After the tour was over – it seemed as though the day was over!! All of the classes that we visited didnt have a teacher present – as they are short on staff. We only have 4 teachers in today and about 8 classes – so the teachers are having a ‘self teaching’ day. This means the kids bum around class while the teachers have a sleep in the staff room. You think we are joking – but one teacher ACTUALLY slept! We felt as though we were running a education class on New Zeaand for the teachers – while the kids screamed around the school!
Every day we have 4 meals a day – Breakfast, Breakfast Number 2, Lunch and Dinner. So the constant trips home began to take there toll – but was a geat way to catch up on gossip that we couldn’t say in front of the other teachers!
We did decide to attempt to do some work today – as the office is a mess we decided to organize all the hundreds of school text books (why they were in the office and not in the kids hands we’ll never know!!) We called it a day and headed home….
That evening we joined our ‘Nini’ in gathering the wood for that evenings fire (with no power this is a MUST each day – or we wont eat!!) and Jax was showen how the women sling the wood together and carry the wood home on their heads….Jax did this and it was priceless! Soon it was time to head into the paddock in the compound to Milk the cows for our 4 times daily drink of ‘Chai’ tea which is a VERY sweet tea that we are sure will ruin our teeth before no time at all! Soon enough we were back in the kitchen helping the family prepare the evenings dinner and a African favourtie – Ugali and Cabbage! (A Corn Mazie Meal that fills you up fast!)
Later that evening the whole family joined us for dinner which gave us the best time to share some gifts that we had brought from home including some Jet Plane lollies, ‘Kiwi’ bracelets, badges and a Maori Doll. The lollies were eaten fast, the doll is still being played with and the badges straight onto the clothes.
We grabbed our torch and headed to bed for the night…
